the country. I think from reading some of your newspapers I get the impression that you have had a certain amount of flack on this from certain newspapers in the community.

We certainly have. I wonder as a politician whether you have any observation to make as to whether what you have just said is politically acceptable.

Mayor LINDSAY. It does not bother me. As a politician I think it is politically acceptable. I think the public is more sophisticated than some people think.

Senator CLARK. I agree with you, Mayor Lindsay.

Thank you very much for a perfectly splendid presentation. It has been a pleasure to have you down here.

The subcommittee will stand in recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning, which will be the last day of our hearing.

(Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m. the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 9:30 a.m., Friday, June 24, 1966.)

AMENDMENTS TO THE ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY ACT

OF 1964

FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 1966

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT, MANPOWER AND POVERTY

OF THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 9:30 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 4221, Senate Office Building, Senator Joseph S. Clark (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Senators Clark (presiding), Javits, and Prouty. Committee staff members present: Arnold Nemore, professional staff economist; and Stephen Kurzman, minority counsel. Senator CLARK. The subcommittee will be in session. First we have a panel representing the American Bar Association and the National Bar Association, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, and the American Bar Association's standing committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants.

I will ask Theodore Voorhees, president of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association to introduce his colleagues and to indicate the order in which they would like to speak.

STATEMENT OF THEODORE VOORHEES, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL LEGAL AID AND DEFENDER ASSOCIATION; ORISON S. MARDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT, AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION; REVIUS 0. ORTIQUE, JR., PRESIDENT, NATIONAL BAR ASSOCIATION; JOHN W. CUMMISKEY, VICE PRESIDENT, NATIONAL LEGAL AID AND DEFENDER ASSOCIATION; AND LOWELL R. BECK, STAFF MEMBER, AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION; COMPOSING A PANEL

Mr. VOORHEES. This is Mr. Ortique, president of the National Bar Association, on my right, and Mr. Cummiskey, the chairman of the American Bar Association on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants. Senator CLARK. There is another gentleman.

Mr. VOORHEES. On my far left is Mr. Lowell R. Beck of the staff of the American Bar Association.

Senator CLARK. I have had an opportunity to read your presentation as have other members of the subcommittee. I want to congratulate you on a very thorough job in presenting the case for a substantial authorization for legal services.

Without objection, the entire statement, including all the exhibits, will be printed in the record at this point.

(The material referred to follows:)

JOINT PREPARED STATEMENT OF ORISON S. MARDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT, AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION; REVIUS O. ORTIQUE, JR., PRESIDENT, NATIONAL BAR ASSOCIATION; THEODORE VOORHEES, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL LEGAL AID AND DEFENDER ASSOCIATION; AND JOHN W. CUMMISKEY, CHAIRMAN, AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION'S STANDING COMMITTEE ON LEGAL AID AND INDIGENT DEFENDANTS

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, we deeply appreciate the opportunity to appear before you on behalf of the national organized legal profession to express support for the Legal Services Program of the Office of Economic Opportunity.

I. SUPPORT OF THE PROGRAM BY THE LEGAL PROFESSION

None of our organizations, the American Bar Association, the National Bar Association or the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, can take the credit for initiating the Legal Services Program of the War on Poverty which began in the Fall of 1964. After careful examination by our governing bodies, officers and staffs, however, our organizations concluded very early that the program should be supported and encouraged.

On February 8, 1965, the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association adopted a resolution directing the officers and committees to:

"Cooperate with the Office of Economic Opportunity and other appropriate groups in the development and implementation of programs for expanding availability of legal services to indigents and persons of low income."

The full resolution is appended as Exhibit No. 1.

In response to the American Bar Association's action, Mr. R. Sargent Shriver termed the resolution "historic" and offered the legal profession the OEO's cooperation in developing expanded and improved legal aid programs throughout the country.

We are pleased to report that there has been full cooperation between the OEO and the organized legal profession in the development of the Legal Services Program.

Leaders of the organized bar on the national level look upon the Legal Services Program as an excellent opportunity to greatly extend legal services to all who need them. This has been the goal of the Legal Aid Movement since its founding, nearly one hundred years ago. Nevertheless, prior to the inauguration of a federally supported program, our profession was not even beginning to do the job which it was required to do. The goal of providing legal services to all who need them had been unfulfilled as a result of the lack of financial resources and often lack of will in local communities.

We offer as Exhibit No. 2 a history of the Legal Aid Movement. We also offer for your information an extraordinarily perceptive article by Mr. Howard C. Westwood, a practicing lawyer in the District of Columbia and counsel to the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. Mr. Westwood emphasizes how important federal financing is in bringing legal aid to all of our underprivileged citizens. See Exhibit No. 3.

Lawyers have been serving clients without compensation since the profession's beginning. Nevertheless, it is unrealistic to assume that with the complexities and endless expansion of today's society, the profession can meet the need without public participation.

The use of government funds in assisting legal aid societies is not a new concept. In many communities, local and state government assistance is established practice. And, of course, the Federal Government entered the field of federal assistance for legal services when Congress overwhelmingly passed the Criminal Justice Act of 1964. This Act, which had the full support of the organized legal profession, provided badly needed financial assistance for the defense of indigents accused of crime in the federal courts.

It is natural, therefore, that the legal profession is actively encouraging a federally supported legal services program such as that administered throughout the country by the Office of Economic Opportunity.

The American Bar Association, the National Bar Association, and the National Lecal Aid and Defender Association have worked actively during the past several months to assist in the development of OEO-funded legal services programs.

We consider this action as best evidence of our respective organizations' support of the program.

Key officers of the three associations are members of the National Advisory Committee to the Legal Services Program. The Committee meets regularly to assist the able Director of the program, Mr. E. Clinton Bamberger, Jr., and his highly capable staff, in determining policy.

Our associations cooperated with the Department of Justice and the OEO in conducting the National Conference on Law and Poverty in June of last year. We believe that you would be especially interested in the conference's closing address by Mr. Lewis F. Powell, Jr., President of the American Bar Association, and offer a copy of Mr. Powell's remarks as Exhibit No. 4.

We are continuing the educational process through regional conferences cosponsored periodically in various parts of the country by the American Bar Association, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, state and local bar associations, legal aid societies, and the Office of Economic Opportunity. The emphasis at these conferences is on practical "how-to-do-it" procedures. More than one hundred persons attended the first conference held in Chicago on March 19, drawing an attendance from five Midwestern states, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

The second regional conference was conducted on March 24 and 25 in Austin, Texas. Jointly sponsoring this meeting were the State Bar of Texas, the American Bar Association, the University of Texas School of Law, and the Office of Economic Opportunity. More than two hundred persons from five states, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, attended.

On May 7, a similar conference was held in Portland, Oregon, under the sponsorship of the Oregon State Bar, the Multnomah County Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the Office of Economic Opportunity, and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. A Southeastern conference is scheduled to be held next month in Atlanta, Georgia.

So that you will know of the wide range of subjects considered at these conferences, and the high calibre of the speakers, we are submitting the programs of each as Exhibit No. 5.

We have cited these specific examples of action by our organizations as evidence of the profession's strong desire to assure the success of the Legal Services Program of the Office of Economic Opportunity. High quality and effective legal services are absolutely vital to the success of the overall Economic Opportunity program.

The various publications of our respective organizations have given continued news coverage to the Legal Services Program. In these publications, state and local bar associations, legal aid societies and individual lawyers have been urged to participate in the development of federally financed programs and have been kept thoroughly up-to-date on the progress throughout the nation.

The American Bar Association and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association have provided technical assistance to those communities wishing it and the officers of all three of our organizations have been addressing lawyers throughout the country, urging that they utilize the assistance offered by the Office of Economic Opportunity.

II. THE ROLE OF LEGAL SERVICES IN ELIMINATING POVERTY

The question may be asked: How will legal services help people to lift themselves out of poverty? What possible practical result will come of legal services for those who cannot afford them?

Our answer is that it will be impossible to accomplish the goal of the War on Poverty to completely eradicate poverty wherever it is found in this country-if the poor man does not have a lawyer to speak for him and guide him in solving his problems.

The question is asked whether legal services to the indigent are a proper method of alleviating poverty and whether the money might not be better spent in providing educational opportunities, medical care or just straight relief. If poverty were purely a question of the physical and material well-being of the poor, the question would be a difficult one to answer. But the fact is that its base is also largely a matter of spirit. The eradication of poverty will necessitate the destruction of defeatism, the inculcation of self-dignity, and above all the development of a belief that the cards of life are not stacked against the poor.